Surviving Conquest: The Maya of Guatemala in Historical Perspective

Abstract

Little by little heavy shadows and black night enveloped our fathers and grandfathers and us also, oh, my sons .. ! All of us were thus. We were born to die! The Annals of the Cakchiquels (ca. 1550-1600) The Maya of Guatemala are today, as they have been in the past, a dominated and beleaguered group. Few have expressed this enduring reality more poignantly than the late Oliver La Farge. Commenting forty years ago on why Kanjobal Indians take to drink, La Farge observed that while these people undoubtedly suffer from drunkenness, one would hesitate to remove the bottle from them until the entire pattern of their lives is changed. They are an introverted people, consumed by internal fires which they cannot or dare not express, eternally chafing under the yoke of conquest, and never for a moment forgetting that they are a conquered people.